Installation: Glow Church, Gold Coast

Glow Church is a contemporary church founded by Pastors Joel and Ellen Cave on the Gold Coast. Glow has grown steadily, increasing to include multiple presences in Australia, the UK, South Korea and the USA. Clear messaging and an engaging worship experience have always been important within the church service experience at Glow. This translates to a practical requirement for technology and equipment to help deliver these elements with consistency and uncompromising quality.

Having worked with Australian integrator Forefront Productions for several years, Glow recently activated another step in its production master plan to upgrade the FOH speaker system and main LED screen at the Gold Coast campus.

Glow began its journey with Forefront with an Adamson IS7 line array system that could wheel in and out of its Melbourne campus, where the church bumped in and out every Sunday. The Adamson rig was chosen partly because it can scale up once Glow’s Melbourne campus moves to a larger location. Having experienced the sonic quality of the IS7 system in Melbourne, the contrast to the existing Gold Coast PA became obvious. A decision was made to convert the other existing campuses to Adamson as the opportunities arose.

“When we heard the Adamson system side-by -side with the existing system at our Gold Coast campus, it became an easy decision,” says Pastor Joel Cave. “The difference in quality was extremely noticeable in the bottom end and particularly in the warmth of vocal quality cutting through with clarity and precision. Previously, the PA felt muddy and there was little separation between instruments and vocals. They felt they were always competing with one another. Now with the Adamson system, each vocalist and musician is sitting right where you want to them to be in the mix and are easily distinguishable from one another. The lead vocals always cut through with ease, like a hot knife through butter.”

With the flexibility and scalability of the Adamson IS7 system, the same audio system can be deployed across Glow’s smaller to larger campuses, providing absolute consistency to the experience at any location.

CMI Music & Audio, Australian distributor of Adamson, partnered with Forefront for design and technical support of the project. Brian Vayler, CMI’s House of Worship Solutions Manager, worked closely with Forefront’s audio system designer Matt Wever to deliver the final system design. CMI assisted Forefront with additional Adamson inventory to stage a full-scale demonstration, and also provided temporary loan equipment until the ordered system arrived in stock.

“The worldwide challenges of equipment supply in our industry is ongoing and a daily challenge,” says Nick Burns, owner of Forefront Productions. “You can’t always obtain the products desired for a job in a reasonable timeframe. Fortunately, CMI Music & Audio has great foresight in anticipating our needs, and supply of Adamson equipment has been the most accessible of any product we deal with in this challenging season. Brian and the team at CMI understand our customers’ unique needs and timeframes, and always assist quickly and comprehensively.”

The Adamson IS7 system at the Gold Coast campus consists of two main left-right arrays of eight IS7 elements per side and two outfill arrays of six IS7 elements per side, bring the total up to 28. “The system was designed to eliminate any need for stage lip front fill,” explains Nick. “Even with the usual higher level of acoustic energy spilling from stage for the first rows of seating, which is always tricky to combat in a church setting.”

Rounding out the bottom end of the system are six Adamson IS119 subwoofers in an array under the front of the stage. “The IS119 is a very powerful sub with very musical sonic characteristics,” adds Matt Wever. “In this case, the number of sub elements are deployed to provide controlled coverage and consistency throughout the space, rather than bone-rattling bottom end.”

Driving the system are Lab Gruppen D:Series installation amplifiers with integrated Lake Processing on board. “One of the unique characteristics of the Adamson IS7 is that the number of speaker elements you can power with a single amp is very impressive – up to 12 boxes,” continues Matt. “This means that for a growing church that will eventually move to a bigger venue, it’s cost effective to just add more speaker elements without having to purchase more amps.”

Forefront Productions have been prominent in the house of worship landscape for many years, with their unique 360-degree ethos of design, planning, implementation, training, and support. “When we made a decision to work exclusively with Forefront across all our campuses, we had some goals that were good in theory. Our experience has been that they weren’t just good in theory; it’s now been better than we could have imagined,” relates Pastor Joel Cave. “Some highlights have been the great support and relationships between our production and tech staff at Glow and the Forefront team. There’s a great flow and consistency between all our locations in audio, lighting, and visuals, including cameras and screens. Having a one-stop-shop for all the things every creative church Pastor needs brings real ease, instead of dealing with four or five different companies.”

“You think you are saving money trying to get the best prices across all the different elements, but we have found when you work with one company who already understands the vision you want to achieve, you actually end up saving time and money, as one provider’s value is far better than it being spread across multiple facilitators,” states Pastor Joel. “Only one phone call is needed from our production manager to Forefront for any of our locations, and the solution is always provided in quick time. Most companies are very one dimensional, but Forefront thinks about the worship experience from start to finish and often are far better at executing our vision. Forefront facilitates the vision a pastor has in their heart, so we get out of the way and let them do what they do best.”

With many church volunteers coming from a non-technical background, Forefront provide invaluable  technical and training support, teaching the community how to operate all of the elements in their new installation.

Representing multiple brands in the sales and installation space, Forefront also have a considerable rental stock, and have recently invested in one of Australia’s largest inventories of Adamson Systems loudspeakers, ordering Adamson CS10 and CS7 line array elements, supported by CS119 subwoofers.

Forefront is now offering nationwide in-situ Adamson Systems demonstrations with their new dedicated ‘Road Show’ service. “There’s nothing quite like being able to see and hear the difference new technology can make in your own space,” enthuses Nick Burns, “so we’re hitting the road with a full range of different Adamson Systems products, digital audio consoles, lighting, and LED screens; whatever a client needs to hear, see and try in their own space. We encourage people to get in touch to book an obligation-free demonstration.”

To make a booking for a demo go to:

www.ffp.com.au/demo

LED Screen: 120x Pixapanel Quantum P3 LED Video Panels